By Sardar Khan Niazi
As the crescent moon ushers in Ramazan — a month of restraint, compassion and spiritual renewal — markets across Pakistan often tell a very different story. Instead of reflection and moderation, consumers are met with inflated prices of essential commodities: flour, sugar, pulses, fruits, vegetables and meat. For many households already stretched by inflation, the holy month becomes a period of added financial anxiety. This contradiction — between the spirit of Ramazan and market behavior — demands urgent attention. Each year, demand patterns shift during Ramazan. Consumption of certain food items increases, particularly at iftar and sehri. In a predictable market, supply chains would anticipate this seasonal surge. Yet in Pakistan, the season often becomes synonymous with hoarding, speculative pricing and weak enforcement. According to data periodically released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, food inflation has remained one of the most volatile components of the Consumer Price Index. Ramazan tends to amplify this volatility. The reasons are familiar: fragmented agricultural markets, poor storage infrastructure, intermediaries’ cartels and limited real-time price monitoring. The issue, therefore, is not merely religious sentiment — it is structural economics. Successive governments — federal and provincial — respond with traditional tools: price magistrates, official price lists and Ramazan bazaars offering subsidized goods. In recent years, initiatives such as the Sasta Ramazan Bazaars have been announced under both the Pakistan Muslim League (N) and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf governments. While politically visible, these measures are often reactive and limited in reach. Temporary price caps can suppress symptoms but rarely address root causes. Traders frequently circumvent controls by reducing supply, lowering quality or shifting transactions off the books. Enforcement teams, meanwhile, struggle against entrenched wholesale networks. Price control without supply management is a blunt instrument. What actually works? If the objective is genuine price stability during Ramazan, three areas require sustained reforms. Better storage, transportation and market integration can reduce artificial shortages. Investment in cold storage and digitized wholesale markets would dampen speculative behavior. Daily, publicly accessible price dashboards at district levels would empower consumers and discourage manipulation. Technology-based monitoring — including mobile reporting systems — can increase accountability. Rather than distorting entire markets, direct cash transfers to vulnerable households — through programs such as the Benazir Income Support Program — may be more efficient and less distortionary. Subsidizing consumers is often fiscally cleaner than subsidizing traders. Ramazan is meant to cultivate empathy for the less fortunate. Islam places strong ethical emphasis on fair trade and condemns hoarding and profiteering. The Prophet (PBUH) is reported to have warned against those who manipulate markets for personal gain. Yet moral appeals alone are insufficient in the absence of institutional reform. Markets respond to incentives, not sermons. The deeper question is why price stability is treated as a seasonal concern. Inflation does not disappear with the Eid moon. Structural weaknesses in agricultural marketing, regulatory capture and weak local governance operate year-round. If anything, Ramazan merely exposes these vulnerabilities more starkly. True reform would mean moving from symbolic crackdowns to systemic transparency. It would mean treating consumers not as seasonal beneficiaries of charity but as citizens entitled to functioning markets. Until then, the annual ritual will repeat: official announcements, temporary bazaars, scattered fines — and households quietly recalculating their iftar menus. In a month dedicated to self-restraint, perhaps policymakers too must exercise restraint — resisting the temptation for short-term optics and committing instead to long-term economic discipline. Only then will the spirit of Ramazan be reflected not just in mosques, but in markets as well.